E D E N PARRAMATTA
Creative Lab
11-28 April 2023
Westmead/Parramatta
A French-Australian Art and Science interdisciplinary project commissioned and produced by FORM Dance Projects in collaboration with Olga Kisseleva (Sorbonne University, Paris), the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development and the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (Western Sydney University), supported by Embassy of France in Australia.
E D E N (Ethical Durable Ecology Nature) is a concept created by Olga Kisseleva, Director of the Art and Science Department of La Sorbonne University. Kisseleva is a cross-disciplinary artist who uses video, immersive virtual reality, wireless technology to create large scale art installations and performance. With E D E N, Kisseleva aims at reinventing with art and technology traditional scientific approaches to environmental issues, notably the survival of trees. With her imagined tools, Kisseleva connects trees to trees, trees to human, trees to memories. FORM’s commissioned work will be the first embodied incarnation of her concept, placing dance at the core a new large scale participatory work inspired by the natural and urban trees of the National Parks bordering Western Sydney and the Parramatta Park.
FORM Dance Projects will invite Olga Kisseleva to collaborate with five leading Australian choreographers/performers in association with scientists of the MARCS Institute and Hawkesbury Environment Institute. The creative lab will be facilitated by Award winning dance artist and researcher Julie-Anne Long. Video artist Samuel James will contribute to the collaborative process. Darug Elder Chris Tobin will provide cultural awareness and acknowledgement of Country for the project.
E D E N is an exciting challenge for FORM Dance Projects. It brings together five choreographers with a trusted FORM history to foster an international art-science collaboration in the creation of a site-responsive work of hope about the future of our country.
ARTISTS
CONCEPT CREATOR/VISUAL ARTIST OLGA KISSELEVA
COLLABORATIVE PROCESS FACILITATOR DR JULIE-ANNE LONG
CHOREOGRAPHER/PERFORMER CLOÉ FOURNIER
CHOREOGRAPHER/PERFORMER RAGHAV HANDA
CHOREOGRAPHER/PERFORMER RHIANNON NEWTON
CHOREOGRAPHER/PERFORMER RYUICHI FUJIMURA
CHOREOGRAPHER/PERFORMER VICKI VAN HOUT
DOCUMENTOR/VIDEOGRAPHER SAMUEL JAMES
CULTURAL ADVISOR CHRIS TOBIN, DARUG CUSTODIAN
PARTNERS
PROFESSOR KATE STEVENS
DIRECTOR, MARCS INSTITUTE FOR BRAIN, BEHAVIOUR & DEVELOPMENT
WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY
DOCTOR MANUEL ESPERON-RODRIGUEZ
HAWKESBURY INSTITUTE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
“This project has been supported through a City of Parramatta Council Community Grant”
OLGA KISSELEVA – CONCEPT CREATOR/VISUAL ARTIST
A graduate of St. Petersburg University, Olga Kisseleva belongs to the first Russian generation which followed the Perestroika, which helped to bring down the Berlin Wall and cast aside the iron curtain. From the beginning of the 90s Olga Kisseleva on the invitation of the Fulbright Foundation, found a roof for her work in the research group in the United States which dealt with the development of digital technologies. She mainly stayed on the research laboratories in New York and California, where she participated in the first adventurous beginnings of Silicon Valley. In 1996 she received a PhD for her theoretical work on the theme of new forms of hybridization and was invited to the Fine Art Institut of “Hautes Etudes” in Paris. Since then she has been developing original work in which she oscillates between truth and untruth and searches for improbable boundaries that separate both. In all of her projects the viewers very much take part, thereby the artist challenges the ability of new media to create a true picture of reality. Olga’s main exhibitions include: National Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Modern Art Museum, Paris, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, KIASMA, Helsinki, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Venice Biennial (1999, 2001, 2003), Istanbul Biennial (2001), Dakar Biennial (2002), La Fondation Cartier for contemporary art, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Machida Museum of Graphic Arts, Tokyo, and Art Institute, Chicago.
